Knitting Lessons, part 1

This past Sunday, I had a delightful afternoon of teaching knitting to my oldest friend, my best friend from high school in fact.  She had a bit of experience already, but had not knit for several years.  And folks, she's a natural - beautifully even stitches and a relaxed attitude.  It made teaching fun and gave me some food for thought.  I really enjoy teaching knitting and other fiber arts and I need to think about finding more official ways of sharing my love of this craft with others. 

After a lovely chat over tea & cookies, we started the knitting lesson and covered cast-on's, the knit stitch, and adding new yarn.  I wanted to make the lesson as entertaining as possible, so for yarn, I dug into my yarn samples stash.  I highly recommend this idea!  It is really fun to play with different colors and textures of yarn, using just a few yards at a time.  It instantly makes the lesson very low-stress and personal, because a student can play with the yarn from the start. 

A "new" knitter:

Fun with colors & textures:

Sorry, Columbus, the world is actually flat

How do I know the world is flat?  Because I fell off the edge of it for a little while.  Between changes at work, family illnesses and surgeries, and the holidays, life has been a whirlwind and my blog was one of the casualties. But I'm back now!  It's a new year, anything is possible, and maybe the world will prove itself to be spherical after all.

I haven't finished any spinning projects since I last blogged, although I have a few more singles spun during that time... but I'll catch up with spinning news in a later post, and I'll catch up now with other fiber news in my life for the last few months. 

One great highlight is from November, 2010, when I visited Misty Meadow Icelandics sheep farm in Minnetrista, MN.  The owners, Tom & Judy McDowell, are awesome people.  Tom gave me a tour of their place, where I got to meet Judy in her felting studio, and then Tom took me to the sheep barn to meet the flock.  We both have biology backgrounds and discussed sheep breeding and husbandry very happily for quite a while.  Here's a photo I snapped of one of the back pens behind the barn.  The smallest sheep in the photo, second from the left, is a young ram who will get to service the other three sheep, all of whom are mature ewes.  The ewes weren't quite in their cycle yet, so it was pretty funny to see how strongly they rebuffed him at that time.  He ended up looking quite disgusted with these three chicks who were big enough to boss him around and had no problem reminding him of that. 

After visiting this farm, Icelandic sheep have moved to the top of my favorite breeds list, and I bought two fleeces from the McDowell's while I was there.  This is a primitive or "unimproved" breed of sheep that are genetically almost identical to sheep from Iceland & the Viking era about 1,000 years ago.  It makes them very interesting - both sexes have horns, they have lovely dual-coated fleeces in lots of natural colors, and the smarts haven't been bred out of them, so to speak.

In December, I did manage to complete one handmade gift for Christmas 2010.  Our friend Ryan gets to enjoy a double knit, reversible hat, and I have to say, I absolutely love self-striping sock yarn!

In other Christmas news, I'm extremely lucky to have family who knows and loves me, because I received some great fiber related loot this year.  My parents found a very neat knitting page-a-day calendar that offers patterns throughout the year:

My brother scored big sister points with a tahkli spindle (a steel & brass support spindle from India traditionally used to spin cotton), a ceramic spindle bowl, and 100 grams of cotton punis (pronounced Poo-nees), which are tightly wrapped rolls of unspun cotton fiber:

My sister- and brother-in-law found a gorgeous Lantern Moon basket, knitting needles, and beautiful silk & mohair yarn for me:

And my husband shocked me with a Strauch drum carder:

I anticipate many, many happy hours with my fiber art in 2011 and I can't wait to share my discoveries, frustrations, and successes with everyone.  Happy New Year!

2010 Knit-Out!

This past Sunday, the Minnesota Knitter's Guild participated in National Knit-Out Day.  We hosted the event at Southdale Mall and the festivities included a handmade knits fashion show, door prizes, and free knitting lessons to anyone who wanted them.  I volunteered to be one of the teachers, and I'm not sure who learned more - me or my students.  I've never taught knitting before, and I have to admit, I botched it with my first student.  I was nervous and it showed.  But I learned quickly from my mistakes and did just fine with my second student.  By the time I had my third student, I was in a groove and felt pretty confident.  The event was very well attended and I think everyone (except maybe my first student) had a great time. 

More spindle WIP progress

I switched gears from my mixed greens yarn project to my gossamer yarn project.  Here's a summary of this yarn project to date... Detta gave me a sample of English Garden merino wool and I wanted to make the most of it, and I also wanted to try making a cabled yarn for the first time.  Cabled yarn is the result of plying two or more plied yarns together.  If you took four singles yarn and plied them together at the same time, the result is called a 4-ply yarn.  But if you take those same singles and ply two of them together at a time, and then ply the two 2-ply yarns together, your result is called a 4-strand cabled yarn.

While this may seem like a small difference in making the final yarn, the structure of the yarns is very different.  The 4-ply yarn is very smooth, with the individual strands lying next to each other and the surface reflects more light.  A 4-strand cabled yarn is bumpier and has a pixelated effect.  The colors of the yarn become dots throughout the yarn, and the reflective quality of the yarn is broken up.  Here is a close-up of the yarn texture between 4-ply and 4-strand cable in a knitted sample:

Since I knew I wanted to make a 4-strand cable, I divided my sample into four sections and spun them separately.  I spun the first section on my smallest spindle and decided that it would be a waste of time to wind that small amount of yarn on a bobbin and repeat that four times, so I then spun a short section of white wool to act as a divider between the first and second sections of the colored singles.  Then I wound that single on a bobbin and spun the third and fourth singles with white wool in the middle to divide them.  So I ended up with two bobbins that would allow me to easily ply two singles together:

So if I divided my sections evenly and spun them consistently, I will be able to ply the yarn from the two bobbins together and the white wool in the centers will match up to mark the division between the two 2-ply yarns.  I've spun the first of the singles together and was very happy to see that my approach worked very well:

There was very little overlap of colored yarn to white yarn, and now I'll keep going until the bobbins are empty.  When I wind the 2-ply yarn back on a bobbin, I'll fill the first bobbin until I reach the white wool.  Then I'll break the yarn and wind the next section of colored 2-ply on the second bobbin.  Finally, I'll be able to easily ply those two 2-ply yarns together to create the final 4-strand cabled yarn.

The fortune cookie was right!

Remember back in September, I had a fortune cookie predict that I would receive something nice in the mail?  Well, friends, never never never doubt the power of fortune cookies.  Do not tempt fate by even mocking them. 

When I arrived home from work today, there was a large box by the door, which puzzled me.  What the heck?, I thought.  (Honest, that really was the 4-letter word I used mentally... it was a such tiring day at the office that I didn't even use a more inflammatory 4-letter word as I typically might have.)  I figured my husband must have ordered something, but then I saw the box was addressed to me.  Huh?  What the...?  And then I saw the box was shipped from 13 Mile Lamb & Wool Company and I spontaneously broke out into a big happy dance.  Beautiful wool fleeces had arrived!! 

I dragged the box inside to open it.  The dogs found it pretty fascinating, too, enough to even drop the toy they had been playing with next to the box.  This isn't the best picture, since Maddy moved and is a bit blurry, but you had to see the size of this box!

And here is my loot - over 20 pounds of raw organic fleeces raised in Montana on a predator-friendly ranch.  I love the natural colors - black, white, moorit & grey.  I am in wooly goodness heaven.

Oliver was fascinated by the sheepy fragrance and kept sticking his face in the fleece bags.  Here he is examining the moorit fleece.  He was quite serious about thoroughly performing his quality control work.

I cannot wait to get to work on these fleeces!  Behold the power of wool: my day went from tiring/boring/blah to happy dance/joy/anticipation in mere seconds.

Spindle WIPs - Progress with "mixed greens" yarn

I'm making progress on my goal of completing all spindle WIPs before I can start any new yarn!  For my "mixed greens" yarn, I've spun all the singles and tonight I wound them on to bobbins (note there are no overloaded bobbins... I have thoroughly learned that lesson).  While winding the yarn on the bobbins, I noticed my spindle spinning skill has definitely improved in the last few months.  The moss yarn, which was spun in July, might give me a bit of trouble during plying.  While its thickness is consistent, I have better learned how monitor the amount of twist in my singles.  I'm pretty sure there are some under-twisted lengths of yarn in the moss singles, but hopefully it won't fall apart during plying.  We shall see.

Spindle WIPs

I've had a mild attack of project guilt, so I've decided to finish my current spindle WIPs (works-in-progress) before starting any more new yarn.  So I'm taking stock of what I have started and what remains to be done:

"Almost" August challenge (Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore) yarn
Current status & plan: both singles are spun and need to be wound on bobbins; I plan to use my wheel to create the final 2-ply yarn. 

Next steps: Untangling first single and reloading it on appropriate bobbin; loading 2nd single on bobbin, plying on wheel, then finishing yarn & calculating skein statistics

English Garden wool sample gossamer yarn
Current status & plan: singles are spun; I plan to create a 4-strand cable yarn from this wool sample.

Next steps: Load singles on bobbins, then spin two 2-ply yarns, reload on bobbins and spin final 4-strand cable yarn, then finish yarn & calculate statistics.  Still need to decide if I'll spindle this whole yarn or use my wheel for any of the plying.

Mixed greens yarn
Current status & plan: moss green single is spun and wound into plying ball, mixed green batt single is spun and wound onto bobbin, emerald green single is not yet finished; I plan to create a 3-ply yarn using one strand of each single and will ply the yarn on my wheel

Next steps: finish spinning emerald green single & wind on to bobbin, reload moss yarn on to bobbin, ply singles together, then finishing yarn & calculate statistics

Starting yet another spinning project

One of the best characteristics about spindle spinning is how easy it is to grab an empty spindle & start a new project.  The other side of this coin is how easy it is have multiple ongoing projects.  Even when I know it would probably be better to finish up works-in-progress rather than start something new, what do I do?  I start something new, of course.  (see #10 on my 25 things list... I told you it explained a lot.)  While I might have been able to resist a new project, the lure of trying my new yellowheart Dragonfly spindle was too great for my willpower.

I have one last drum-carded batt from my Custom Fibers class and I decided it had waited long enough to meet its yarn destiny.  It's a blend of emerald and moss greens (BFL and Colonial wools, respectively) with a bit of copper firestar thrown in for a flash of sparkle. 

I grabbed my new spindle and started happily spinning away.  The batt was very soft and drafted extremely well, allowing me to spin the wool very quickly:

I am very pleased with this new spindle - it's nicely balanced and spins for a long time.  As I was spinning, I brainstormed what I wanted to do with this yarn, and I think I will make a 3-ply out of it.  I have the moss wool in a very thin single, then I have this mixed yarn, and I have plenty of the emerald green wool that I can spin for the third strand in the plied yarn.  The mixed & emerald singles will be similar gauge, but the moss single is much thinner.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the different thicknesses will create texture in the final plied yarn.

I wound the mixed greens yarn on to a storage bobbin (which fit perfectly, and I appreciated that moment of serendipity) and started spinning the emerald green wool with the spindle:



Pssst! Don't Do This

Pride goeth before the yarn becomes a tangly freaking mess that will likely mean my "Almost" August yarn will now be finished in October, not September.

Here is the flow of events:

1.  I read Alden Amos' treatise on spinning, paying particular attention to his thoughts on yarn management, including reloading yarn on storage bobbins.

2.  I buy a bobbin winder.

3.  I decide that despite all advice, it's unneccessary to worry about overloading a bobbin.  I am a fully capable adult who can easily manage a  very full bobbin.  I reason there are no spinning police, so I'm safe with this decision.

4.  The spinning powers-that-be decide I must be humbled. My penance will be spending a ridiculous amount of time rewinding the yarn on to an appropriately sized bobbin:

5.  I vow to never repeat this bobbin winding transgression and buy storage bobbins with 3" high sides.

Gossamer Yarn

I've been slightly obsessed (is that like being a little pregnant?) with using my new small 0.6 ounce Dragonfly spindle ever since I bought it. It is easily my smallest, lightest spindle and it has been very entertaining to spin ridiculously thin yarn on it. It doesn't seem right to say it's yarn, since it's more like thread. Right now I'm spinning a beautiful sample of dyed wool top with this spindle and I'm spinning about 80 WPI (wraps per inch).  What does this mean?  In other words, how many yarn diameters add up to one inch, therefore my yarn diameter is approximately 0.0125 inches wide.

According to iSpinToolkit, one of my favorite iPhone apps, 80 WPI is classifed as gossamer yarn, and if I had a pound of fiber spun at this gauge, I would create more than 10,000 yards of yarn. In comparison, a worsted weight yarn is around 12 wraps per inch and you get about 1,000 yards from a pound of fiber. Needless to say, I feel very sassy about gaining this skill level with my new spindle. While the 80 WPI gauge is for the single and I intend to create a plied yarn with it, the finished yarn will still be very thin and delicate.

New Dragonfly Spindles

I spent a couple of hours on a Saturday morning this month at Detta's Spindle, which is a treasure chest of wheels, looms, spindles, accessories, fiber, books, and everything else you can think of.  It is easily one of the nicest ways for a fiber artist to start her weekend. 

You may have noticed that I love my cherry wood Dragonfly spindle, which I bought at Detta's several months ago, because I use it all the time.  I'm using it now to spin the second single of my Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore yarn.  My spindle is a beautiful, balanced, handmade tool that was created by John Hunter, the owner & expert woodworker of The Dragonfly Workshop.  I love that he is a local woodworker based in Bloomington, MN. 

Well, it was impossible for me to walk away from more Dragonfly spindles. I have added three more to my collection, and I love the wood colors and the different sizes/weights of these tools:

Vital Statistics:
Large spindle - I'm not sure what type of wood is used, but the whorl is very smooth & dense & maple shaft; 3 3/4" whorl, 13" length; 4 1/8 ounces
Medium spindle - yellowheart whorl & walnut shaft; 2 7/8" whorl, 9 1/2" length; 1.6 ounces
Small spindle - big leaf maple burl whorl & walnut shaft; 1 3/4" whorl; 6 3/4" shaft; 0.6 ounces

Fortune Cookie

Hmm, did I order more handpainted wool?  Maybe I sleep-shopped?

Glorious September Vacation

I returned recently from a 4-day weekend in Hayward, Wisconsin.  My parents have rented a cabin there for the past four years and I've been lucky enough to spend long weekends with them during their WI getaways.  Mom & Dad always bring Grandma with them, and it's wonderful to spend time with family away from regular daily life.  My husband and his grandfather also spent the weekend in Wisconsin, and I think it's great to have everyone together from multiple generations.  The dogs, of course, absolutely love the cabin, the woods & the lake.  Out of all the paid vacation time I've used this year, this past weekend was the first one that truly felt like a vacation, where I could rest my mind and my body for a few days. 

Packing for the trip put a big smile on my face, since I had four pairs of handmade socks to bring with me.  Happiness is wearing handmade socks on vacation:

I think the strongest memories of this weekend will be the time I spent on the small fishing boat with my Dad and Grampa, where my job is to play "anchor girl" and ooo-&-aaah over the pretty fish they catch.  I lower & raise the anchor as needed when they pick a good fishing spot, and then I sit back, relax, and just breathe.  This is probably what made the weekend feel most like a vacation - I actually had a handful of hours with no phones, distractions, or demands.  You can hear the breeze through the trees, the occasional call of birds, and the water lapping against the side of the boat.  The air is fresh, the light is beautiful, and it feels really, really good to be alive. 

And here is proof that spinning yarn on spindles is perfectly mobile - you can spin anywhere.  I got several yards of Corriedale-silk blend fiber spun while relaxing on the boat.  This photo is deceptive, since there is a wicked amount of multi-tasking going on.  I'm holding up the spindle for a photo with one hand, taking the photo blindly with the other, and my foot is keeping tension on the anchor line to make sure the boat stays in the general location where the fishermen want it:

My husband's main hobby is photography and I know that he got a lot more photos than I did over the weekend.  I haven't seen them yet, but he always has beautiful shots, and I can't wait to pick out my favorites.  There are amazing colors and textures that I know will inspire my fiber & textile projects.  I want to explore methods of expressing my love of the northern Wisconsin lakes & woods in fiber.  I keep a little black book (literally) of my fiber ideas, so that I don't lose them when they suddenly occur to me, and there is now a page dedicated to my brainstorms for September vacation inspired yarn.

Spindlers October Challenge Anticipation

I'm still spinning the second Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore single for my "Almost" August Spindlers challenge, and I'll definitely finish that yarn this month. I'm excited to see how the plied yarn turns out with the heathered striping effect I'm trying to achieve. The next two months' challenge topics have been announced, and even though September's topic of Myths & Mythological Creatures sounds very, very fun, I know that my September calendar doesn't have enough breathing room to add this challenge to my to-do list. However, I anticipate October will be available for me to enjoy the challenge, which is Best Friends.

I must be hungry or stressed or something right now, because I immediately starting thinking about comfort food best friends, like peanut butter & jelly or grilled cheese & tomato soup. But in the long run, I'm not interested in using a food-based inspiration, so I prodded myself to think of other favorite Best Friends pairings. And one of my favorite comics, Calvin & Hobbes, popped into my head. Bingo! My vision is to create a 2-ply yarn using a thicker black and orange single plied with a thinner yellow, red & black single. I think the thicker Hobbes single should be striped, while the thinner Calvin single will come from a multicolored roving, so that it has more mixed and unpredictable bits of color. This should be a very fun & colorful yarn to create!

Favorite new tool

I wound off Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore single #1 using my new bobbin winder last night. And I kept thinking, why the hell didn't I buy one of these before?? In a smidgeon of the time it takes to wind a single into a plying ball, minus the cramped fingers of this activity, plus the benefit of being able to keep even tension at a distance on the winding yarn to equalize twist in it, I had a beautiful bobbin of yarn!